


Statement of Claude Morin Personal chef.

by eldritchcatpossum (skinsuit)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Typical Horror, Cronuts, Gen, Humor, LonelyEyes, M/M, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), TW: implied drinking, food stealing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25379215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinsuit/pseuds/eldritchcatpossum
Summary: The statement of Claude Morin regarding his time as personal chef to Elias Bouchard and Peter Lukas.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 18
Kudos: 71





	Statement of Claude Morin Personal chef.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by speccyferret!

Statement of Claude Morin on his time spent employed as personal chef for Elias Bouchard and Peter Lukas. Original statement given January 10th, 2015. Audio recording taken directly from subject January 10th, 2015

**Statement begins:**

I have to be here, it was a condition of my employment that I give this statement as I guess you would say; as an exit interview, I suppose. I have a friend, Lars Olsen, opening up a place in Norway, and he asked me to work for him, so I decided to give my resignation. I have to say I have no regrets leaving my bosses, while the pay was generous and the budget was equal to the wants of my clients, I do not exactly enjoy working for them. Mr. Lukas has a habit of jumping out from some unexpected corner to frighten me, I still don’t understand how he does this, but I don’t like it. Also for the past year Mr. Bouchard has shown up in my nightmares to discuss the menu or items he wishes to add to the shopping.

I’ll begin where it started; three years ago I answered a small online add looking for a private chef that required pastry experience. I had other clients but I needed more money in order to afford living in this city, I sent my CV and references and received an unassuming email asking when I could interview. The interview was at their flat in Chelsea, I was greeted by Mr. Bouchard who conducted the interview. You know, he has this unnerving way of staring at you? Well yes, that happened. I did not see Mr. Lukas at all, though it was oddly cold in the flat and there was a large amount of mist.

At first the interview was normal: Where I learned to cook, what my experience was, what hours was I willing to work etc. Then it got… strange. Mr. Bouchard seemed to know things I hadn’t put down, like what I did when I was in the military, my mother’s maiden name and what my greatest fear was. I didn’t exactly feel comfortable at that point but the salary he’d suggested was far more than any of my other clients could offer, so stayed. I was asked for a demonstration of my pastry skills. At the time, his request didn’t seem difficult: a treacle tart.

However I didn’t like the way he watched me the entire time, smirking.

The mist had seemed to follow me into the kitchen, it wouldn’t go away. I didn’t know why at the time, I thought perhaps the ventilation of the flat wasn’t good. When the tart was ready, I cut him a slice, he slowly, slowly ate it, not taking his eyes off me. He seemed to enjoy it. Then he looked up at the mist and said: “Well Peter, what do you think?”

A huge man emerged from the mist, fork in hand and took the rest of the tart and devoured it. I admit I jumped, I may have cursed.

Mr. Bouchard grinned wider at me.

“Really, Peter do show some restraint,” He said to the man who had come from the mist to eat the tart.

The other man looked at me, not even ashamed: “Hire him, Elias.”

That was how I met Mr. Lukas and set the tone for my employment. In the beginning I had other clients, however within a few months, I didn’t. Thanks in part to the generous salary Mr. Lukas paid me, but mostly? They all terminated my contracts, every one of them that did it in person did so the same way: pale, shaking, jumpy and afraid. The ones that didn’t? Well they simply stopped returning my calls and emails. I’m pretty sure, the last, Mrs. Moore, just seemed to vanish. It was odd, but I was so busy with Mr. Bouchard and Mr. Lukas’s schedule, I didn’t have time to care.

Other than dessert, which always had to be perfect, they had very different tastes and needs. Mr. Lukas didn’t seem to care about quality and would eat any kind of plain food you put in front of him. I swear you could put a pot noodle in the right bowl and he’d eat it. Mr. Bouchard on the other hand was more… difficult. He expected everything to be organic, free range, high quality and cooked in a variety of creative and difficult dishes. Nothing too bizarre or avantgarde, you understand, but asking me to make puff pastry from scratch because he fancied palmiers for tea the next day or croissants for breakfast was… not out of my skill range… but …highly challenging. Once and only once, I decided to buy a slightly cheaper cut of meat for their dinner and pocket the difference, but within the hour I got an irritated call from Mr. Bouchard, demanding I return it and buy the ‘the one he requested.’ Not that it mattered, the dish that night was roast dinner. Another thing was how they took their meat: Mr. Lukas liked it very… well done. Mr. Bouchard wanted it rare. I could please neither of them with one piece of beef and any compromising on my part would end badly, I’d find myself mysteriously alone for days, miserable, or plagued by nightmares about being chased by leathery steaks with my mother’s face. In the end I’d just make two no matter how much I ended up wasting, because it wasn’t worth it.

This brings me to incidents involving cronuts. Mr Bouchard got it in his head that he wanted to try some and rather than avail himself of the many bakeries in London that have them, he wanted me to personally ‘whip up’ a batch. After researching them and having come up with and a perfect recipe in my own time, I successfully made a batch of cronuts for Mr. Bouchard. They were intended solely for Mr. Bouchard, but the thing was the first three times I made them, Mr. Lukas was home from sea. I would leave the freshly glazed cronuts on the bench, turn around and they’d be gone in a puff of mist and a trail of crumbs. All twenty four of them, three times in as many weeks. Mr. Bouchard was not pleased at all and he’d bring up … things… that had happened to me in my past… bad things… which I never told him about and yet he knew.

The final time I made cronuts, Mr. Lukas was at sea and Mr. Bouchard was finally able to try my cronuts, and told me they were …. ‘Acceptable’, just, then he picked at them for three days, but never finished them. As it turned out, he wasn’t as fond of cronuts as he thought he’d be.

Both Mr. Lukas and Mr. Bouchard have a sweet tooth. But Mr. Lukas was worse, he frequently will sneak things before they are cool, take pieces before it is time to serve them, lie to Mr. Bouchard about whether there was dessert, and of course outright steal the whole thing when Mr. Bouchard or I am otherwise occupied. This was one the things they frequently squabbled over, Mr Lukas was called in turns: ‘a greedy oaf’, ‘a thoughtless pig’, ‘thieving sneak’ and ‘a lying prat’. Divorce would often be brought up by Mr. Bouchard during these arguments. As far I knew they never went through with it.

When Mr. Lukas made off with that tower of profiteroles right before a dinner party, I was sure they were going to get divorced. I had never seen Mr. Bouchard so angry, I wasn’t sure Mr. Lukas would be alive for very much longer. 

I left that night, sure I’d come back to a crime scene, the next day. However canceling the dinner party, a bottle of riesling, a half bottle of gin and sharing the reminder of the profiteroles helped a great deal.

Although the pay was generous as well the budget, I could do without the nightmares and unrealistic expectations. My time in their employ has been strange and I’m not sorry to leave. However I am quite surprised that I am leaving so easily. I should be grateful for that at least.

Statement ends.

**Post Statement**

**audio recording by Martin Blackwood March 7th, 2018**

Mr. Morin disappeared shortly after this statement was given. We contacted his friend Lars Olsen, the chef owner of Seabean in Oslo who said Mr. Morin never arrived there or took up his position as sous-chef. No further follow-up can really be made; there's no way we’ll be allowed to look into either Elias’ or Peter Lukas’ personal lives.


End file.
